Saturday, September 28, 2013

I may be offered a paying-gig working on a text to introduce high-school students to some canonical (public domain) poems in the "Common Core Curriculum." Since I hated poetry in high-school (largely because of the way it's taught), I find writing a "sample essay" to be a daunting task--especially as I try to simplify my grad-school theory-speak, but I need a job....so it's worth a shot. Here's one of my first attempts to speak to high school students in writing.

Phillis Wheatley:
Biographical, Historical, Literary and Religious Context (with a reading of “On
Being Brought From Africa to America.” & one other poem)

I. A Revolutionary
War Poet

Phillis Wheatley’s poetry embodies the highest hopes for liberty
of Colonial America which the spirit the revolutionary war, at its best,
embodied, but the tragedy of her early death also reveals the betrayal of those
hopes.

In her poem, “To His Excellency General Washington,”
Wheatley adeptly and eloquently employs classical myths and poetic rhetoric to
praise General George Washington in the fight for liberty against the
tyrannical King of England, George III.

Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light,

Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write.

While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms,

She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.

See mother earth her offspring's fate bemoan,

And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!

See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light

Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!

The Goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,

Olive and laurel binds Her golden hair:

Wherever shines this native of the skies,

Unnumber'd charms and recent graces rise….

“Columbia” was the word used to describe colonial America in
the 18th century, and was often personified as a female goddess in
this neo-classical era. Wheatley rarely wrote of her own personal life in her
poetry, but these “glorious toils” are also her own:

One century scarce perform'd its destined round,

When Gallic powers Columbia's fury found;

And so may you, whoever dares disgrace

The land of freedom's heaven-defended race!

Fix'd are the eyes of nations on the scales,

For in their hopes Columbia's arm prevails.

Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,

While round increase the rising hills of dead.

Ah! Cruel blindness to Columbia's state!

Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late….

Among George III’s many atrocities was his continued
encouragement and legal sanction for the capturing people from Africa to become
slaves in the Colonial Empire. As a slave forcibly taken from her native land,
Wheatley had great hopes that the demand for “liberty” was not an idle word,
and felt tremendous solidarity with the cause that lead to the founding of this
country.

In this patriotic poem written in 1775, when she was 22
years old, Wheatley works within the parameters of the classical British and
European poetry (Pope, Milton, Horace, Virgil and Homer) in which she steeped
herself upon being taken from her native land at the age of 7, but also adeptly
includes references to her native culture and religion (in this case “mother
earth”) that many other fellow-slaves (literate or not) could relate to, if
able to hear. Her intermingling of the traditions of Christianity, classicism,
and hierophantic solar worship, evident in such poems as her “Ode To Neptune,” suggests
one way of creating a distinctly American poetic and religious language that
speaks to all the colonists, secular
and sacred, free and slave, white and black.

II. A Religious Poet

According to John C. Shields, "her allusions to the sun
god and to the goddess of the morn, always appearing as they do here in close
association with her quest for poetic inspiration, are of central importance to
her." The hierophantic solar worship is what she brought with her from
Africa; the worship of sun gods is expressed as part of her African culture. As
her parents were sun worshipers, it may be why she used so many different words
for the sun. For instance, she uses Aurora eight times, "Apollo seven,
Phoebus twelve, and Sol twice." Shields believes that the word
"light" is significant to her as it marks her African history, a past
which she has left physically behind. He notes that Sun is a homonym for Son,
and that Wheatley intended a double reference to Christ.[1]

From a strict Christian religious perspective, even the use
of Classical European (Greek and Roman) myths, and invocations of Apollo, Zeus,
and Athena, was considered heresy, but accepted because of their literary value. The Gods the African
worshipped were not even afforded literary
status, since it was primarily an oral culture. It makes sense that
Wheatley would see more in common with her native religion in these Greek and
Roman myths (which, in most accounts, were derived from African myths in the
first place; Homer didn’t write), than in the monotheistic (and increasingly
rationalistic Deist philosophies of) Christianity. Yet once she became aware of
the Christian evangelists whose mission was to educate and convert, she soon
found a way, at a young age, to incorporate the dominant religion of her new
land into her parents’ religion.

III. “On Being
Brought From Africa To America”

Five years before she had written her poem to George
Washington, she wrote a short poem on the death of Calvinist minister George
Whitefield, at the age of 17. While this poem is less ambitious, both
literarily and religiously, than her later work, it remains her most well-known
and anthologized piece.

The 8-line poem in simple end-stopped rhyming couplets begins
by placing itself firmly in the tradition of Christian missionary verse and
letters from its beginnings with St. Paul, who converted from Judaism, tried to
convince others to do the same. Wheatley begins: “Twas’ mercy that brought me
from my Pagan land,/Taught my
benighted soul to understand/ That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too.” But
after these three lines, Wheatley departs from the “missionary” tradition in
one crucial way: While most “converts” (from St. Paul to St. Augustine) address
those who they are trying to convert, Wheatley’s main audience is not Africans,
much less those who were brought to America on slave ships; she’s not trying to
convert them to Christianity. Instead, her main audience is white Christians.
She’s trying to convert, or at least convince, Christians, or those who call
themselves Christians, to show their much-touted virtue of “mercy” on her race,
rather than the scorn based on racial prejudice used to justify slave-labor.

As the 17 year-old Wheatley continues:

“Some view our sable race with a scornful eye,

Their color is a diabolic dye.’”

Remember, Christians,
Negroes, black as Cain,

May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.”

If given the chance, we can speak your language, culture,
and religion, which you claim is more “refined” than ours. She understands
there’s “a Saviour,” but she’s not bragging that she’s been “saved.” Knowing
her other poetry helps put these lines in poetic and religious context; she’s
not exactly rejecting her “pagan” religion. “Pagan” needn’t not be a judgmental
moral term, but rather a descriptive term to describe any religion aside from
the dominant one, in this case Christianity. But clearly a light flashed in her
head when she saw the similarities between the Christian God, and the Sky-God
of her native religion. In this early poem, Wheatley is thus already speaking
in code, in what the later writer and statesman, W.E.B. Du Bois referred to as
a “double consciousness.”

The ironies of this poem may have fallen on deaf ears to her
largely white audience at the time, but it’s crucial to note that she refuses
to state in this poem that she’s renouncing, or turning her back, on her native
religion. Rather, she’s attempting to “refine” it to fit within the context of
the alien culture she’s toiling to make the best of, in an attempt to find continuity with the culture she was
forced to leave behind (just as many immigrants from other countries become
culturally bilingual; something that was not allowed for the vast majority of
African-Americans). And this task becomes more evident in the poetry she wrote
in subsequent years. In her tribute to George Washington, for instance, “the
land of freedom’s heaven defended race” could refer to both America and her
“pagan land.”

Wheatley herself was one of the very few Africans who had
been shown even a smidgeon of “mercy” when she arrived in America, and even
that was very hard-won. She received “an unprecedented education for an
enslaved person, and for a female of any race. By the age of twelve, Phillis
was reading Greek and Latin classics and difficult passages from the Bible.
Recognizing her literary ability, the Wheatley family supported Phillis'
education and left the household labor to their other domestic slaves. The
Wheatleys often showed off Phillis' abilities to friends and family”
(Wikipedia). But she still met with scorn, and at best was celebrated as a
“token” during the war effort. Even when her book, Poems on Various
Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) brought her fame both in England and
the American colonies, she was brought to court to defend her authorship of the
work; some people still couldn’t believe that she could write so “refin’d.”

IV: Subsequent Life
and Tragedy

Unfortunately, the course of history took a tragic turn for Wheatley
in particular, and for millions of other Africans who were now living in
America. The Colonies did gain “independence” from England in this war, but
independence was not granted to slaves, or even extended fully to women.
Wheatley was thus doubly disenfranchised, and even though she was legally freed
from slavery on her master’ death in 1778, such “freedom” resulted in even
worse living conditions than she had known as a slave. Shortly after being
freed, she married John Peters, a free black grocer. As Wikipedia sums up her
life from this point, “They struggled with poor living conditions and the
deaths of two infant children. Wheatley wrote another volume of poetry but was
unable to publish it because of her financial circumstances, the loss of
patrons after her emancipation (often publication of books was based on gaining
subscriptions for guaranteed sales beforehand), and the competition from the
Revolutionary War.

Her husband John Peters was imprisoned for debt in 1784,
leaving an impoverished Wheatley with a sickly infant son. She went to work as
a scullery maid at a boarding house to support them. The racism and sexism that
marked the era had forced her into a kind of domestic labor that she had not
been forced to do while her freedom was held by her masters. Wheatley died on
December 5, 1784, at age 31. Her infant son died three and a half hours after
her death.”

Forgotten by her early supporters, one of whom was on his
way to becoming “the father of the country,” the promise of her early poetry
remained unfulfilled, and the tragedy is not merely personal. What Wheatley
could have contributed to the new country had she been able to continue to
write and publish her work remains a tragedy of the utmost magnitude. Yet her
heroic struggle from the chains of the slave ship “Phillis” to writing poetry
in the most fashionable and sophisticated style (praised by the likes of
Voltaire and Thomas Paine amongst others) in her short life stand as a
testimony to the human spirit, but also, alas, of the legacy of slavery,
institutional Racism, and the limits of Christian “mercy.”

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

How Covering Neil Innes Made Me Think About The Isley Brothers' Role In The Black Art Aesthetic (The Feuerzeig Video Covers Project: "Number One" [The Rutles], with Kramer

“Number One” by
Neil Innes, recorded and performed by his legendary band The Rutles in 1978
(pretending to be 1963), is different than most Rutles songs, in that it is not
simply a parody, or even tribute, of The Beatles. A dance song in its own right
(still played in clubs on “mod night” and not just for joke value), it’s
debatably the most rocking song on the All
You Need Is Cash soundtrack (especially since they didn’t include “Get Up
And Go” after John Lennon warned Innes that McCartney would sue him for
plagiarism).

Unlike “Twist And Shout,” the lyrics are not about dancing,
but based on pun on how your “significant other” is like a chart-topping hit
(“Toppermost to the poppermost” was an early Beatles mantra, and this is played
up in the documentary, for which the song was a soundtrack). It also manages to
use the “love/shove” rhyme in a way that doesn’t make me cringe!

Though performed in that style the Beatles perfected in the
early 60s, it uses the “La Bamba” chords and recognizable call-and-response
vocals, but also adds a weird guitar riff with cowbell and a bridge with
handclaps and minor chords entirely lacking in The Beatles version of “Twist In
Shout.” Because of this, some claim it’s even better. Since it’s based
primarily on a song that The Beatles themselves didn’t write, the song calls
attention, and pays tribute, to the original hit by The Isley Brothers—who were
themselves multi-platinum mega-stars by 1978 when The Rutles recorded “Number
One.”

“Twist And Shout” is a fun dance song that endures over 50
years beyond its original composition and recording. It has basically become a
“standard” in the “great American song book”—even if the most famous version
these days is by a British band. Written by Phil Medley and Bert Berns, it was
originally recorded by the Top Notes, but for practical purposes the definitive,
sanctioned and sanctified, original version is by The Isley Brothers.

The Top Notes version was actually produced by Phil Spector
in 1961—but before he had developed his signature recording style. Songwriter
Berns, who later wrote other 60s classics as “Here Comes The Night,” “Piece Of
My Heart,” and “Hang On Sloopy,” before dying at that age of 38 in 1967, felt Spector
had ruined the song, which lacked energy, soul, and rawness, and did not catch
on. So he decided to go back in the studio with The Isley Brothers in 1962 to
show Spector how he intended the record to sound.

The choice of the high-energy gospel-influenced Isleys, who
had already hit with their classic “frat-party” song “Shout” a few years
earlier, proved to be fortuitous, as the song reached #2 on the US R&B
charts, and #17 on the crossover US Pop hits, serving as a perfect follow-up to
early signature song, “Shout” and capitalizing on the Twist dance craze. Within
a year, the Beatles covered it on their first album Please Please Me.

In England, The Isleys version hadn’t been a hit, yet The
Beatles were avid listeners of American R&B and turned the song on to a
wider audience, as it became the showcase to the album and their live shows
(which often opened or closed with this high-energy number). When Beatlemania
hit in America in 1964, they brought “Twist And Shout” back to the states---and
the song may have even played a bigger part in establishing them as a
high-energy rock and roll band—who could shout--
here than their originals like “I Wanna Hold Your Hold,” which seem tame by
comparison.

In fact, the song, which was not intended as a single (during
an era when singles were more the industry standard than the album), became so
popular that Vee-Jay records, who still owned the American rights, released it
as a single to cannibalize on Beatlemania, and it reached #2 on the charts in
1964, only prevented from reaching #1 (Number One) by the fact that Capitol
Record’s official Beatles single, the long-awaited for, and much hyped, “Can’t
Buy Me Love,” was occupying the #1 position. [1]

In England the song, like many of the Beatles other covers,
had the effect of popularizing the original American R&B hit by The Isley
Brothers, but in America it had a different effect. One can understand why many
R&B acts felt the “British Invasion” was being used by the major labels to
cannibalize, and even erase, the crossover popularity that many black acts were
beginning to have. While the Isley Brothers version wasn’t exactly forgotten
(as say Irma Thomas’s original version of “Time Is On My Side” was), its
popularity was certainly eclipsed by the Beatles version in “white America” at
least. The Isleys themselves, who were going through a chart dry-spell in 1964,
(even though they were writing and recording such songs that later became
classics, including “Who’s That Lady?” and “Nobody But Me”---later a hit for
The Human Beinz) had some very interesting things to say, and to testify about this song.

II. The Isley's "Testify"

In 1964, The Isleys wrote and recorded a song called
“Testify,” featuring Ronald Isley’s amazing lead vocals, and Rudolph Isley’s
spoken, shouted vocals, alongside the amazing guitarwork of their new, young,
guitarist, Jimi Hendrix. It’s a fun, funny, complex, but also incredibly raw
(even sloppy?) and even strangely defiant song. It doesn’t seem they cared
about having a big hit at this point—but were relishing their role as a soulful,
albeit comic, dance-band beloved on the “chitlin circuit,” which this song
celebrates, and it’s amazing that it was even released on vinyl. At over 6
minutes, it occupied two sides of a single, which was released on their own
T-Neck records to be sold at shows, and for posterity.

In “Testify,” Rudolph Isley adopts the role of the
sanctified preacher even more exuberantly and loosely than on “Twist And
Shout.” It makes much more room for improvisation, while keeping the beat. After a brief organ and guitar trade off, here’s
how Rudolph verbally introduces the
song on the record:

(talks/shouts) Brothers and
sisters, and to ALLL this song may concern,

If you wanna have some soul,
if you wanna be a witness,

I want you to listen while I
testify. Maybe I can help you get some soul to be a witness baby,

You wanna be a witness?

(sings)

ALLL it takes it the rhythm
(yeah, yeah)

In your feet (yeah, yeah)

Don’t worry bout the music,
baby (yeah, yeah)

You gotta have the beat
(yeah, yeah)

Now you got soul (horns) You
got soul (horns) You got SOUL (horns)

At this point, it goes into a fairly conventional James
Brown-esque song with horns,

but then a great early Hendrix solo, as they prepare for the
next movement, which takes the song to a whole new level. As they introduce the
choral theme:

I’m so glad, I’m so
glad, I’m so glad That I got some soul….

Once this chorus is established, they impersonate Ray
Charles, James Brown, Little Stevie Wonder, and Jackie Wilson-- all whom
testify how they “got some soul.” The line between talking and singing
beautifully blurs in the testifyin’. After about 5 minutes of this comic, theatrical,
musical tribute in which various Isley brothers take turns imitating these
classic, and notably all more popular, crossover acts, they take a detour:

Rudolph Isley:

Thank you very much, thank you very much Jackie, you
truly burnt this morning,

Yes, You truly testified this morning, son. Yes, you
testified this morning.

If you don’t testify no more, you testified this
morning. But right about now,

We goin way ‘cross the water (“Jackie” does one more
scream)—

Testify, I heard you baby—But we goin’ way ‘cross the
water, Jackie.

Waaay over there,(and some cats with?) long hair—

By now they got some soul. I said BY NOW they got some
soul.

I don’t know about yesterday, but by now

(Isleys break into silly Beatles impersonation:

“I’m so bad, I’m so bad, I’m so bad, I’m so bad.”

And then switch into the “I’m so glad that I got some
soul” chorus)

As the song fades to its ending….

The pun on bad is hilarious! While the Isleys do give the
Beatles some credit for bringing some “soul” into popular consciousness during
this time, for obvious reasons (with a knowing wink), they have to remind their
audience (the live audience who needs no reminder, but also people like us who
only get to hear the song on record, in retrospect, and were drawn to it, in
part because of the presence of Hendrix, or our interest in the Isleys because
of their bigger later hits) where the Beatles got it from. And, yes, “Twist And
Shout,” may have written by a white
guy, but the Isleys “own” it, at
least as much as The Beatles do.

In a way, “Testify” (not to be confused with the George
Clinton song of the same name) fits in very much with the separatism of Malcolm
X, during this time, playing to, and celebrating the entirely black crowd and
encouraging self-determination in contrast to Malcolm’s criticism’s of Martin
Luther King as an assimilationalist. If we can build economically
self-sustaining communities, we don’t need the approval of “white America”
unless it’s under our own terms (and when will be paid those reparations you
promised).

In a musical context, it’s a far cry from Berry Gordy’s
Motown’s vision at the time. Yet, this somewhat autonomous chitlin circuit was
under siege,[2] and
the Isleys themselves realized they could create beautiful music and have a
crossover hit on Motown (The Holland-Dozier-Holland penned “This Old Heart Of
Mine”), but it would be a mistake to reduce Motown to a mere assimilationalist
organization. At its peak, when it was still based in Detroit during most of
the 1960s, this organization presented a paradigm for black capitalism (small c
capitalism) that, in retrospect, comes closer to Malcolm’s vision for
self-determination than has been achieved in the music business since that
time. As entertainers, the Isleys could have it both ways, soon breaking away
from Motown to create amazing funk grooves and soul ballads (and even covers of
70s white “soft rock”) to showcase Ronald’s voice in their biggest hits during
the late 60s and mid-70s (including “Fight The Power,” which later influenced
Public Enemy).

“Testify” itself has become something of a lost-classic, and
gained a life of its own, largely because of the presence of Jimi Hendrix, for
both black and white fans who are fascinated by his “early work” as he
developed his chops, even more showcased in his other single with the Isleys,
the self-referential “Move Over And Let Me Dance” (move over rover, and let
Jimi take over). Most myths of Hendrix’s brief stint with the Isleys propounded
by the largely white rock critical establishment emphasize how Hendrix was
hemmed in by this relatively conventional soul band at that time—yet one listen
to “Testify,” should show how this song is anything but conventional! In fact,
as Hendrix himself came back from “way across the water,” and began to work
with more black musicians (from Buddy Miles to Arthur Lee), Hendrix’s own career
was on the verge of taking another turn, which could be its own essay (see
David Henderson’s epic biography).

But to get back to the Isleys’ point in parodying the
Beatles in “Testify”—it’s true;the
Beatles did learn the art of soul from performing their own covers of R&B
songs, specifically when Lennon sang lead. You can hear how their cover of
Berry Gordy’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” became a huge influence on songs
like “You Can’t Do That” while an original like “All I’ve Gotta Do” came out of
Arthur Alexander’s “Anna” for instance. There is no song in the Beatles
songbook, however, based on “Twist And Shout” in similar ways—they left that
for The Rutles to do with “Number One”—which may be a parody, but it has just a
little too much soul to be a mere joke.

As far as I know, The Isley Brothers felt no particular
solidarity, or even interest, in The Rutles, and Neil Innes, “way cross the
water,” may not have been thinking about The Isleys much for that matter.
Certainly, I wouldn’t even try to
cover The Isley Brothers “Testify” in a “piano van” even with a musician as a
great as Mark Kramer joining in. It was hard enough to rock, and have some
soul, in this band-less, dancefloor-less context, to pull off “Number One,” or
“Twist And Shout” which I often collage with “Number One” when I’m playing for
audiences in supermarket parking lots, who know “Twist And Shout” more than
“Number One.” But, man, I would love to be even a teeny-weeny part of a band
that can create such a raucous, sanctified,----and thought-provoking- piece as “Testify.” And if that remains
impossible, at least play the three, or is it 4 songs, alongside of each on a
“mod night” radio show, or if it that’s impossible, at least write this essay,
for inclusion in the “Piano van” art installation piece in a gallery.

I also include this alternate version---from a live
performance, which unfortunately was not filmed (as far as I know), but you can
see The Isleys with Jimi rocking an all black crowd at a small venue. This
version doesn’t have as many verbal comic theatrics, but gives Jimi more room
to let loose.

[1]I will avoid an aesthetic contrast between the
two-records. Both have their advantages, and I ultimately see it as a draw (and
both The Bealtes and The Isleys did it better live, especially when they were still able to play in small clubs
where people could dance!)

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

I may be offered a paying-gig working on a text to introduce high-school students to some canonical (public domain) poems in the "Common Core Curriculum." Since I hated poetry in high-school (largely because of the way it's taught), I find writing a "sample essay" to be a daunting task--especially as I try to simplify my grad-school theory-speak, but I need a job....so it's worth a shot. Here's one of my first attempts to speak to high school students in writing.

John Donne: Song (“Goe And Catche A Falling Starre”):
A Reading

I. Starting From The
Ending

When I first read “Goe And Catche A Falling Starre,” the
lines that jumped out for me were the simplest, seemingly most direct lines in
the poem: “No where/Lives a woman true, and fair.” If that wasn’t enough,
Donne concludes: “Yet she/ Will be/ false, ere I come, to two or three.” The
message seems clear, and, indeed, many others read this early poem of John Donne’s in a similar
way. As one critical analysis puts it, Donne “argues that is impossible to find
a woman who is both attractive and faithful to one man.”[1] Another
writer even goes so far as to say “he blames the evilness of woman for his pain
and heartbreak.”[2]

Since most other people take this as the point of the poem,
it got me thinking of John Donne’ character. Is he just heartbroken or is this
a cynical, misogynistic, stance? Is John Donne a bragging rakish swashbuckler,
a “scorner of love,” like the character Benedick in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing? Is he a young, bratty, punk like the young
Mick Jagger or the young rappers who sing about ‘bitches and hos”? Does he even
believe what he’s saying? And, if he believes what he’s saying, what does he
propose to do about it? Is he going
to simply ignore women for the rest of his life? Or has he just given up
looking for a woman who is both attractive
and faithful, and will choose one or the other?

There’s two ways to do that, of course: there’s a much more
recent song (though it’s an oldie from the early 1960s) that sings: “If you
wanna be happy for the rest of your life/never make a pretty woman your wife/so
from my personal point of view/ get an ugly girl to marry you.” Is John Donne’s
“Song” saying that? Or is he choosing the “fair” woman over the “true” woman,
and saying since she’s going to play the field, I might as well play the field
too! Is the poem, then, simply a defense of his
inconstancy?

Even that simple statement in the last line suggests a
double meaning with its strained syntax: “Yet she/will be/ False, ere I come,
to two, or three.” While the commas make it clear that he means, “she will be
false to two or three,” when you hear
the poem, it sounds like he’s saying “she will be false ere I come to two or
three.” When I heard this, I knew I had to go deeper into the poem. I wondered,
are we all, in fact, asking the wrong questions, and taking the lines out of context?

II. Looking At Those
Lines In Context Of The Poem

There’s a lot of other information in the poem than these
lines, which are the hook that gets most of the attention, there’s no need to
read a biography of John Donne in hope it will tell us the author’s real
intention (poets usually don’t tell you their intention, and even when they do,
they may not even entirely know themselves).

III. The First Stanza

The more one looks at “Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star),”
the more complex the seemingly simply moral (or immoral, amoral, moral) becomes,
and each stanza becomes more dramatically
complex than the previous one. The poem actually has three characters: I (the
writer); “thou”(the male it is addressed to); and “she” (the hypothetical woman in the third
stanza)—though they aren’t really put into relationship with each other until
this last stanza.

In the first stanza, there is no mention of this woman, or
of women in general, but we do see the writer talking to this male reader
(though we don’t know he’s a male yet).[3]
He’s either commanding or asking the reader to do a series of tasks. Some of
them are clearly impossible—and the stuff fantasy is made of. But many people
still turn to writing, or movies, for fantasies such as these (from The X-Men to The Littlest Mermaid). Is it really impossible to “find/what wind/
Serves to advance an honest mind?” That
question may be at least as important as any statement Donne makes about women
at the end of the poem.[4]
Donne himself can’t answer that question, but the second stanza tells us more
about who Donne it talking to, and satirizing.

IV. Second Stanza

“If thou be’est born
to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights…”

He’s clearly talking to a young man, who fancies himself an
epic-poet, or fantasy story-teller, just like the most poetry that was more fashionable, and famous in the
Elizabethan Era (Spenser’s Epic The Fairy
Queen and Sir Phillip Sidney’s Astrophil
And Stella) of the 1590s when Donne wrote this poem. Like Shakespeare’s
Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(1595), he doesn’t believe these “fairy tales,” but tries to look at them
with the eyes of cool reason.[5]
And here’s where thedeeper point of the poem becomes
evident:

“Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,

All the strange wonders that before me,

And swear,

No where

Lives a woman true, and fair”

In context, Donne is not saying that he believes this is the case, he’s saying that “thou wilt tell me”
that. The man has now spent 10, 000 days, and he’s 27 years older, with “snow-white”
hairs, and has wasted his whole life on “living the dream” and still is
wondering why he can find a singing mermaid, etc.! Why? Is it possible the
reason that “thou” wilt tell him that is because he’s what we would call “a
hopeless romantic” or a restless “desperado” who is so busy travelling,
wandering the earth in his magical, heroic, quest, like Don Quixote dreaming
the impossible dream, that his
character cannot settle down enough to let this woman love him, even if she
were staring him in the face? Certainly he’s less “fair” than he was 27 years
earlier. The passage of Time becomes an issue: a young man and woman may be
fair, but as we get older we’re supposed to
lose that “fairness.” It becomes a ridiculous ideal to hold onto.

V. The Third Stanza

The third stanza makes it even
clearer that Donne’s main focus is to satirize this particular type of male
attitude toward life, as well as to love (and women). And here’s where the
poem get most interesting and dramatic,
and the three charactersare put into an
imagined relationship with each other:

“If thou find'st one, let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,

Though at next door we might meet;

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you write your letter,

Yet
she

Will
be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Looking at the whole stanza, the emphasis of Donne’s primary
satire remains on this self-proclaimed “pilgrim of love.” The confidence with
which Donne writes: “Yet do not, I would
not go” needs to be emphasized, because it reveals, beyond a doubt, that
all the “commands” he was giving earlier in the poem were put-ons, mocking
those who already think and write that way. Because “I” now enters so boldly,
the sharp contrast between him and “you” becomes clearer than it had been
before:

Though she were true, when you met her,

And last, till you
write your letter”

He purposely doesn’t say whom the letter is written to. Some
readers assume that the letter is written to the “speaker”—to Donne himself, [6]
but there’s nothing in the poem to confirm that. He writes “let me know;” that
could be a letter, but it could also be verbal (they didn’t have phones back
then). Yet poets do write love-letters to women—and sometimes the letter may
change the way the woman feels about the man, for the worse (in fact, many of
Shakespeare’s plays are based on women mocking a letter written by a man
protesting his love, and calling her “fair and true.”). Even if he can’t prove that this letter was written to
the woman, it’s at least as plausible as the reading that the letter is to
Donne. The woman remains silent in Donne’s “Song,” but Donne is well versed in
the art of love to know that women often respond this way to such men.

This is the subject of the real satire. Donne’s telling this
fanciful “pilgrim” that your letter can make
this woman false; if your unrealistic attitudes toward life and love are any
indication, your letter will certainly fail to convince her of your truth just
as your poetry does! As a writer, he
gives a lot of importance to this letter, and boldly announces he’s a different
kind of writer and person: a thinker. In fact, she may even be false to you (ere I come) because she’s
with Donne! She might even end true to Donne. He’s not denying that women can
be “false” to “two, or three,” but that could be just a woman’s prerogative to
change her mind, once they learn more about this travelling man who has been
chasing after “her.”

“Song” is indeed a poem about misogyny, but it’s primarily
about the seemingly hidden kind of misogyny that happens when a writer
over-idealizes a woman. This over-idealization had become a convention and even
a cliché in 16th Century European poetry, and Shakespeare also
satirized this in his later dark lady sonnets. Today, you find a similar
attitude of over-idealization of the woman in many popular songs. As one woman
put it, “you just put women on a pedestal so you can look up our dresses.”

[4]In this line
Donne makes it clear that he’s genuinely looking to learn something; he doesn’t
just want a sweet, pretty poem or song; he wants what the 20th century
literary critic Kenneth Burke calls “equipment for living.”

Lyrically, “I Wanna Be With You,” may have few words and
lack the ambiguity of more ‘sophisticated,’ but darker, songs I’ve written
about---but the words are the perfect complement to its complex musical
arrangement.[1] Their
power is precisely in getting to the point quick, and letting the music do the
talking-- a lesson probably learned from the woman in the Raspberries first
hit, “Go All The Way.” It’s one of the most convincing romantic rock songs in a “teen-love” setting (and
can even convince those of us who also can groove on the cynicism of songs like
No Trend’s “Teen Love”).

The singer’s persona, and
his lover are presumably both under 18, living with their parents (“if we were
older, we wouldn’t have to be worried tonight”)[2]
Such themes were more common in 50s and early 60s rock and roll (when that was
the majority demographic), but it’s the bridge
that make it more convincing as Carmen’s voice reassures the woman that he will
indeed still love her tomorrow, and doesn’t just want sex or even a kiss. He
wants to soothe, to ease, and please her, as he asks her permission (“if you
believe”) before telling her to close her eyes. Lyrically, it’s the perfect
complement to “Go All The Way,” in which the woman taught the man what the man
is teaching the woman here. The earlier song was in the present (and immediate
future); this follow up emphasizes the future: “be with you” means “stay with
you,” “live with you.”

In the Shadow of “Go
All The Way”

In order to write about the music of “I Wanna Be With You,” I have to take a closer look at
what its prequel does. By 1972, was difficult not to take sides between “heavy rock” and “light rock”—as the
radio playlists, and the culture in general, was fragmenting into more specialized,
segregated, niches. But if you were a band who loved to rock, but also loved
the glories of a mid-tempo melodic romantic ballad, what do you do if you want
a “hit record, one they play on the radio?” You write and record a song that
does both, as they’ve never been done
before!

“Go All The Way” burst on the scene with the sound that sufficiently
establishes a heavy cred for many—but it amazingly and seamlessly slows down,
quiets down, and opens the curtains of the heart, to a beautifully melody, and
a short, but intimate testimony in the verse: “I didn’t know what I wanted to
say/ till she kissed me and said baby, please Go All The Way.” On the chorus, the choral harmonies and
countermelodies enter, obviously influenced by the Beach Boys & Beatles
(but in my opinion even more glorious in the context of this song), to soothe
with their power.

But the song can work on the dance floor too--the heavy rock
returns on the bridge, when lead singer Eric Carmon exhibits a Small-Faces-era
Steve Marriot vocal range (“before her love I was cruel and mean”) and Wally
Bryson rips some the most tasty guitar leads ever in pop & rock music.
After this pay-off, it quiets down into rhythmic build up with call &
response vocals, which makes me want to clap your hands as they build back up
the pretty chorus. The “come ons” here are as close to the musical equivalent
of sexual foreplay as you can achieve in a romantic pop song. The words say
what the music does; or is it the other way around?

The woman in this song makes the first move. We don’t even
know if she wants to stay with him forever—but in this song, the singer doesn’t
mind or need that. He’s happy she took the lead, and it has unlocked him. In
the process, “Go All The Way” fulfills a male fantasy and lives up to its name
as it pulls out almost every hook in the book to balance melody and rock,
harmonizes the yin in this all-made band with the yang, at least as much as
Chicago’s “Make Me Smile,” but lyrically it’s especially refreshing, as it balances
a rock and roll swagger (that could be ‘cruel and mean’ by itself) with a
vulnerability and shyness on both a musical and lyrical level.[3]
They may have looked to “femme” for
some men, or some women for that matter, but by the end of the song, the male
singer is transformed, as if he’s the
one saying “Go All The Way” as much as woman who unlocked him.

When a rock/pop band comes out of the gates this strong, on
the strength of one song, the
challenge of the follow-up inevitably arises. How do you top it? Or even repeat
it? One answer is, you don’t try. You can fill it in. The range of this song
left enough wiggle room so you wouldn’t have to worry about getting pinned in,
as if the song is like a woman you can go back to for inspiration and mystery so
much, you gotta be with her, even if
we have to pretend this night could
last forever and dream it might come true.

“I Wanna Be With You,” certainly borrows from the “Go All
The Way” formula musically as well. It’s much shorter, and doesn’t include as many
various elements as that earlier gate-smashing song, but the chords are
surprisingly complex---as Barrett Avner and I discovered while rehearsing it
for the video. It’s an education to experience the song from within its
structure, and learn from Carmen how to include chords that deviate from the
standard I-iv-IV-V chord progression it’s based on. These chords may not
necessarily be crucial for the melody to
be carried, but give the overall arrangement a magic, and help underscore the maturity that probably wouldn’t come off
in a ‘rock lyrics as poetry as class.’ But the song—taken a whole—does
something the post-“Wasteland” modernist poetry of complexity often fails to
achieve. It makes much of the ‘poetic rock’ seem more ‘cruel and mean’ by
comparison. It speaks in vocal harmonies and ‘beat group’ instrumentation,
without mincing words. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings....

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FawlyX525H4

[1] just as the complex lyrics of Leonard Cohen work best
when complemented by simpler melodies, chord structures and arrangements.

[3]1972 was also the height of “feminism” (in pop-culture
at least); which may or may not play a part in this song’s popularity. Would
love to hear your thoughts or feelings!!

Friday, September 6, 2013

Luna’s “Lost In Space” is a classic happy-sad song, both
musically and lyrically: it cannot be reduced to either of these names for
moods. Rather, it explores a primal ineffable feeling prior to being divvied up by language into discrete names
for moods (or diagnoses of a blessing or affliction). Structurally, it’s a very
simple, even sparse song: verse chorus, verse chorus, instrumental interlude
and chorus; 3 simple Lou-Reed-esque chords throughout—with no chordal variation
between verse and chorus. Yet it shows how a lot can be done with very simple
elements; even though the song doesn’t officially begin with the chorus, that’s
what many listeners hear first.

The Chorus

Its musical and lyrical hook
is the catchy sing along chorus, which you have to hear in time, with the
music, to grasp the meaning, and the feeling, of.

You heard it all
before, they said your case was tragic

You heard it all
before, now they say it’s magic

The lyrics seem simple enough, and may even remind one of
the fairy-tale of the Ugly Duckling who becomes the Swan, but “Lost In Space”
goes beyond such a fairy tale “Happy Ending” to suggest the swan song, the final cry of the dying
swan. While this simple “tragic/magic” end rhyme certainly seems more uplifting than were it the other way around—a feeling
which is heightened by the musical arrangement’s brightening as is moves from
the sadder, introspective, feel of the verses into this anthemic chorus (which
Luna often played faster, and more rocking, live than it was on the recorded
version).

Indeed, this end rhyme has been used so many times it has
almost become meaningless (and certainly there are countless songs that render
this rhyme ridiculous), and Dean even sings them in such a way. Part of Dean
Wareham’s brilliance with these simple, understated, lyrics and vocal delivery,
is to also point out the ridiculousness of such simple binary thinking/talking.
It may take a few listens, but once hooked,
the words “they said” and “they say” take on the primary emphasis.

They have changed,
but your life may stay the same. As they change what they call you from
tragic (the isolated hero who dies alone) to this magical, generative being,
there’s always the possibility that this naming,
this assessment or diagnosis, can, in fact, change your case, and maybe even your essence (if you believe you have
one—which you may not, if you’re “lost in space.”)

But because “you’ve heard it all before,” it’s hard to
believe what they said before (your
case was tragic) or what they say
now. The lyrics don’t exactly spell out why
they changed what they say (or think): was it something you did or said? Or was
it something they finally perceived (whether truer, or more illusory than their
previous perceptions)? But does this change in their perception and/or
conception of your case really
suggest comfort (or even ‘hope’) for the “you” of the song?

The Verses

As with many songs with catchy, sing along choruses, these
lines are often the only lines of the song many casual listeners know, or have
made it into long-term memory. They sink in, but on repeated listens, they call
attention to the verses, especially if you’re looking for insights into
unanswered questions about the significance of the chorus’s words.

The verses are certainly sad; perhaps tragic, but definitely
ridden with pathos. The singer is non-judgmental and sympathetic with the
struggle the “you” is going through, as if he’s also talking to himself. Since
the sadness is at least as present in the second verse (after the chorus) as in
the first, it shows how the chorus (despite their now calling you magic) didn’t
really change much.

There is little lyrical variation between the two verses,
but while the first verse is more like an impressionistic puzzle, the second
verse hints at a story, or at least a situation that “you” are going through.
It only takes one line to create the keystone that holds the lyrics together.
As Dean slowly stretches the simple sentence “You need/ time off/ for good/ behavior” over four distinct musical
phrases (with pauses between each phrase for the riff), the weight of this
sentence is emphasized more than the other lines.

This forces me to hear this “everyday” phrase as I’ve never
heard it before, with a suggestive richness and poetic ambiguity it
conventionally lacks. It’s the only line in the song that expresses what “you” need, and lack. But these needs can be taken two different ways: “you
need/time off” first suggests you need a vacation. But “you need time off for
good behavior” comes fromprison, in
which “good behavior” can knock months, or even years, off your sentence. In
the song, the sentence itself is
excrutiatingly long, as the singer purposefully stretches the word “be-hav-ior”
out, so it takes awhile for its mystery to sink in. But once I realize it comes
from prison, the entire song—including the chorus—takes on a darker
significance, in words at least.

If you’re a model prisoner (like, say, James Brown was, when
he formed a gospel band in prison to “sing songs for the Lord!”), you can get
such time off, but you need an authority figure to testify on your behalf that
your actions (or even inactions) can be deemed worthy of “good behavior.” You
need to show signs that you have “reformed” in ways that he, she, or they, take
as evidence for your fitness to return to the “real world” while you’re waiting
for your case to come up. How you
ended up in prison doesn’t matter (were you falsely accused? Or caught
red-handed?), but now that you’re here, can your actions be called “good
behavior?”

That’s the question!

Let The Hearing Begin

Judge: In
considering the case of this subject, is there any evidence to suggest that
this case is fit for being a productive member of society, of making an honest
buck? We will hear initial arguments from the state and from the prisoner’s
advocate:

Prosecutor: By
his own admission, this case is lazy, and even crazy…

Advocate:
Objection!

Judge: On what
grounds?

Advocate: Those
lines were never uttered in the first
person…they were uttered in the second person

Judge: Objection
over-ruled. The appellant clearly speaks of himself in the second person. (to
Prosecutor) Proceed.

Prosecutor: He
laziness is evident in his perpetual yearning for “something else”

he can’t even name. Even his fantasy heroes who he once
looked to as exemplary role models seem tame to him. He would rather be “crazy”
than “tame” and thus cannot contribute to society in a functioning, or even productive,
way. This case is “lost in space,” and will not listen to the advice of those
who are trying to help him. His actions present no evidence of any
rehabilitation, and clearly his sentence should not be shortened.

Judge: We will
now hear from the advocate:

Advocate: The
Prosecutor neglects to take into account all the evidence. The defendant is
clearly overworked. He certainly acts tame: he’s tired, and needs time off, in order to continue to
perform his exceptional, and exemplary—and even magical—duties that he has performed
in the penitentiary.

Prosecutor:
Objection!

Judge (wearily):
On what grounds?

Prosecutor: The
appellant is “tired” because he doesn’t work enough. He tires himself on
dreaming of “something else”….

Advocate: Let me
address that. It’s true the appellant has admitted under duress he’s both tired
and lazy, but only because others
have called him lazy. He was bearing false witness against himself. We need to
take the environmental factors into account. No matter how hard he tries, and
works, it’s still not good enough for some (glowers at the prosecutor). After
all, the term “lazy n-word,” (which is still used today, even in this penitentiary) was first used to
describe people who worked 60 plus hours a week in contrast to compulsory 24/7
slave-labor! If this prison claims to be truly a facility of rehabilitation,
rather than simply of punishment and confinement, we need to consider the
appellant’s justifiable tiredness in the light of his good behavior. The
defendant’s actions have clearly been harmless and his work ethic has been
exemplary!

Prosecutor: While
my esteemed colleague certainly argues eloquently and passionately on behalf of
the appellant, he weighs the appellant’s needs
much more heavily than his actions and
achievements. If we set this legal precedent, we’d consider the needs of much
more disruptive prisoners to be greater than their actions, and open up the
streets to clearly unreformed mass-murderers and rapists.

Advocate: The
appellant, as the prosecutor himself is well aware, is not a mass murderer or a
rapist. That’s a slippery slope argument. When he’s finished all his required
duties, he keeps to himself, writing and reading, and, when allowed, plays his
guitar. The prisoners and guards have been amazed by his brilliance.

Prosecutor: But
he exhibits a failure to commit to any specific role in society, and lacks a sense of personal grounding that
makes him unable to function in social settings!

Advocate: Not if
his needs are considered as well as his
abilities. Have you read his manuscripts? Have you heard his music? Record
labels and publishers are interested. They say it’s magic!

Prosecutor:
There’s a thin-line between magic and madness. Even if we grant that he’s
magic, that doesn’t mean he’s employable or could even function as a freeman in
society. I will conclude with a quote from no less of an authority figure on
civic society and poetry than Shakespeare:

The appellant, however, is not even able to do this. He may know there’s something more, but he can’t even give it a name, much less a “local
habitation.” Sure, publishers and record labels are interested, but he doesn’t
even like that his heroes are being sold. I rest my case!

Advocate: He
doesn’t have to give it a “name” if he can give it a song! Furthermore, he doesn’t like the way they’re being sold; there’s a crucial difference. He’s
passive; he understands he needs someone to sell him. He’s letting me sell him.

Prosecutor: He’s
projecting his own depression and passivity onto his heroes. This also reveals
his delusions (and choice of heroes who died young or tragically). Survival
demands being tamed, whether someone else sells you or you’re able to sell
yourself!

Defendant: He’ll
get over it, once he’s out of this prison. I, too, rest my case.

Of course, we don’t have to see the “you” as being in an actual prison (just as we don’t have to
see “Unchained Melody” or “I Shall Be Released” as about an actual prison). Placing
it in the context of any work in the so-called “free world” could also give it
a local habitation and a name. In such an interpretation, the need for time off
is simply the need for a vacation, or what I like to call “homework.” The “time
off” becomes part of the job--especially
if it’s your job to create magic (a
“crazy” job, but apparently the only one some of us can get).

As one who has spent my entire adult life laboring in the
culture industry, rather than in prison, I personally hear “you need/ time
off/for good/ be-hav-ior” as a defense of the dual-activities that both the
teaching and music businesses demand. For instance, as a musician, you have to
both perform and compose. As many musicians will attest, relentless touring can
get in the way of actually writing and recording the music, but at the same
time recording and writing the music can get in the way of performing. You’re working all the time, but these two
roles are very different. Ideally, they can feed each other symbiotically, as
many create their best records­ while
taking a brief break from a lengthy tour (i.e. Revolver and Rubber Soul,
as but two examples), but “time off” from a tour booker is often “time on” for
a music publisher or label who wants a new magical song. Without a balance between the two, it’s easy to feel “lost in
space.”

Likewise, in the college teaching industry, there’s a
symbiotic relationship between the activities you perform in the classroom
itself, and the homework (so-called “prep” of syllabi, or reading lists, and
grading papers and emailing students).Most of us never would’ve been employed as college professors had we not
written books, and in order to write books, we need “time off” from teaching to
exhibit good behavior as an effective mediator of classroom discussions. And,
ideally, the kind of discussions one can facilitate as a teacher feed back
into the writing one creates. Without a balance between the two, it’s easy to
feel lost in space (which is why some of us can teach college exceptionally
well, but cannot teach high-school with its long hours, and little room for the
kind of intellectual and creative homework that allows us to be “magical” in
the classroom to people who appreciate it!).

In this sense, the song takes on a very personal
significance for me, as a plea for understanding---whether or not that was Dean Wareham’s attention—but I know others
who have highly personal, and very different interpretations of the song.

I can understand why some see this as an anthem of early
1990s “slacker culture,” the archetype of the lost-in-space 20-something
sitting in a coffee shop with a huge unpaid college debt trying to figure out
what the hell to do with their life—but it can be so much more. For me, much of
what I say about “prison” becomes all too true of the “lost in space” reality
I’ve been living as a context-less homelessman over the past year, but the song
is not simply a complaint (and certainly having the privilege of covering the
song with Dean & Britta themselves brought some “magic” into the potential
tragedy of my life).

Conclusion: “It Must
Appear In Other Ways Than Words”

Though much of my interpretation emphasizes the sadness and
pathos in the lyrics, I still conclude it is a “happy-sad,” or even
“sad-happy" song. If the “tragic/magic” rhyme is ridiculous, Dean’s rendering
of it reveals the necessary ridiculousness
of such binary thinking that may be the only thing that can save one from being
lost-in-space.

Aside from the word “magic” in the chorus, there may not be
many words to suggest the magic, but
after the two verses are finished, and the second chorus ends with the word
“magic,” the final 33% of the song is devoted to a beautiful instrumental (that
is itself both happy and sad), before returning to the final chorus. This
chorus, perhaps more than any of the words in the song, is evidence of the
“magic” that can (perhaps) transcend the potential tragedy in the lyrics—so
when the chorus returns after the solo, there is a sense of transformation
there hadn’t been earlier. I wouldn’t call it a classic “happy ending,” like
conventional romantic comedies, but at the very least it’s a “problem comedy”
which “must appear in other ways than words” as Shakespeare’s Portia puts it (MV,
Act 5, Scene I, Line 139).

About Me

7 books of poetry, including Stealer's
Wheel (Hard Press, 1999) and Light As A Fetter (The Argotist UK, 2007). My critical study (with David Rosenthal) of Shakespeare's 12th Night (IDG books)
was published in 2001; more recent prose writings of contemporary media studies
and ethnomusicology have appeared on-line @ Radio Survivor
(http://radiosurvivor.com/2011/06/02/a-history-of-radio-and-content-part-ii-jukeboxes-to-top-40/)
and The Newark Review
(http://web.njit.edu/~newrev/3.0/stroffolino1.html). A recipient of grants from
NYFA & The Fund For Poetry, Stroffolino was Distinguished Poet-in-Residence
at Saint Mary's College from 2001-06, and has since taught at SFAI and Laney
College. As a session musician, Stroffolino worked with Silver Jews, King Khan
& Gris Gris and many others. Always interested in the intersections between
poetry and music, he organized a tribute to Anne Sexton's rock band for The
Poetry Society of America, and joined Greg Ashley to perform the entire Death
Of A Ladies' Man album for Sylvie Simmons' Leonard Cohen biography in 2012.
In 2009, he released, Single-Sided Doubles, an album featuring poems set to
music. In 2016, Boog City published a play:AnTi-GeNtRiFiCaTiOn WaR dRuM rAdIo. Stroffolino currently teaches creative writing and critical thinking at Laney College